Baker's Biographical Dictionary - A Review
DOUGLAS TOWNSEND
Here we have biographical sketches of well-known, and virtually unknown composers, performers, and musicologists, all described in Nikolaus Slonimsky's inimitable style.
The MHS Review 237 Vol. 3, No. 3 March 26, 1979
Dictionaries and encyclopedias are notorious for their generally colorless literary style. There are (or were), of course, some notable exceptions, Tovey' s articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica, as well as those by Percy Scholes (Oxford Companion to Music) and Denis Stevens (scholarly and· easily readable books and articles) are some which readily come to mind. Another exception is Nicholas Slonimsky, who edited and revised the 6th edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary, which was published late last year. Mr. Slonimsky is a conductor, composer, writer on subjects musical and bibliographer. As a person, he is a witty, warm and brilliant young man in his mid-eighties. Always on the quest for new facts about old subjects (the weather at Mozart's funeral, for example), or new facts about new subjects. He is always a pleasure to talk with, and no matter how lengthy the discussion, one always leaves him feeling it was too short. While he was editing and revising the 5th edition of Baker's, we would frequently meet at the library, and he would say, with a smile in his eyes, that so-and-so's real name was such and such, or that he had just located the birth date of an 18th century composer I had never heard of.
While the 5th edition of Baker's was a revision of work by his predecessors, the 6th edition is pure Slonimsky. Here we have biographical sketches of well-known, and virtually unknown composers, performers, and musicologists, all described in Slonimsky' s inimitible style. And a personal style it is, too, since his command of the English language defies description or imitation. Here for example is the way in which he describes his own forced retirement from the University of California: " ... he taught variegated musical subjects at the Univ. of California, Los Angeles; was irretrievably retired after a triennial service (1964-67), ostensibly owing to irreversible obsolescence and recessive infantiloquy; but disdaining the inexorable statistics of the actuarial tables, continued to agitate and even gave long-winded lecture-recitals in institutions of dubious learning.''
Biographical information is of necessity kept to a minimum, but is complete enough to give some idea of the artists--their times, as well as a fairly comprehensive listing of their works. and an up-to-date (as of 1977) bibliography. J.S. Bach receives 6 columns (the entire Bach dynasty, however, is given 12 columns), Beethoven alone is given almost 12 ½ columns and three generations of Mozarts are allocated almost 11 columns.
Contemporary composers, too, are listed in this valuable book: Wolpe, Bartok, Schoenberg, and Copland, to mention a few. But the new edition of Baker's is invaluable, and seems to me to fill a real need, in that it is the only work of its kind currently available that contains a generous listing of American composers born between 1920 and, say 1950. This includes composers such as Wuorinen (1936), Glass (1937), Sollberger (1938) and Paull (1946), as well as Foss (1922), Bergsma (1921), Laderman (1924), Kupferman (1926), and your MHR editor (1921).
But classical musicians and composers are not the only ones covered in Baker's 6th. There is considerable information on "pop" composers and performers, too: Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and various members of The Beatles, as well as Woody Herman, the late Guy Lombardo are some of the names you will find here. The entries regarding these artists are no less pithy than those of their more classically oriented contemporaries, and the choice of words to describe a musical style or a singer's delivery is perfectly suited to the subject: Sinatra, we are told, developed a method of singing "by convex inhalation from a corner of the mouth, a sui generis 'mal canto' in sotto uoce delivery ... " Paul McCartney (the only one of The Beatles who went to college, by the way) "went through a period of transcendental meditation when he sat at the feet of a hirsute Indian guru, but his British common sense soon overrode this metaphysical infatuation.''
All told, the 6th edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary is not only the model of what such a tome (and it is a tome, too, consisting of 1955 double-columned pages, exclusive of the delightful--and informative-twenty-seven page introduction), should be: Concise, easy-to-read, and most important, accurate.
Dictionaries and encyclopedias are notorious for their generally colorless literary style. There are (or were), of course, some notable exceptions, Tovey' s articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica, as well as those by Percy Scholes (Oxford Companion to Music) and Denis Stevens (scholarly and· easily readable books and articles) are some which readily come to mind. Another exception is Nicholas Slonimsky, who edited and revised the 6th edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary, which was published late last year. Mr. Slonimsky is a conductor, composer, writer on subjects musical and bibliographer. As a person, he is a witty, warm and brilliant young man in his mid-eighties. Always on the quest for new facts about old subjects (the weather at Mozart's funeral, for example), or new facts about new subjects. He is always a pleasure to talk with, and no matter how lengthy the discussion, one always leaves him feeling it was too short. While he was editing and revising the 5th edition of Baker's, we would frequently meet at the library, and he would say, with a smile in his eyes, that so-and-so's real name was such and such, or that he had just located the birth date of an 18th century composer I had never heard of.
While the 5th edition of Baker's was a revision of work by his predecessors, the 6th edition is pure Slonimsky. Here we have biographical sketches of well-known, and virtually unknown composers, performers, and musicologists, all described in Slonimsky' s inimitible style. And a personal style it is, too, since his command of the English language defies description or imitation. Here for example is the way in which he describes his own forced retirement from the University of California: " ... he taught variegated musical subjects at the Univ. of California, Los Angeles; was irretrievably retired after a triennial service (1964-67), ostensibly owing to irreversible obsolescence and recessive infantiloquy; but disdaining the inexorable statistics of the actuarial tables, continued to agitate and even gave long-winded lecture-recitals in institutions of dubious learning.''
Biographical information is of necessity kept to a minimum, but is complete enough to give some idea of the artists--their times, as well as a fairly comprehensive listing of their works. and an up-to-date (as of 1977) bibliography. J.S. Bach receives 6 columns (the entire Bach dynasty, however, is given 12 columns), Beethoven alone is given almost 12 ½ columns and three generations of Mozarts are allocated almost 11 columns.
Contemporary composers, too, are listed in this valuable book: Wolpe, Bartok, Schoenberg, and Copland, to mention a few. But the new edition of Baker's is invaluable, and seems to me to fill a real need, in that it is the only work of its kind currently available that contains a generous listing of American composers born between 1920 and, say 1950. This includes composers such as Wuorinen (1936), Glass (1937), Sollberger (1938) and Paull (1946), as well as Foss (1922), Bergsma (1921), Laderman (1924), Kupferman (1926), and your MHR editor (1921).
But classical musicians and composers are not the only ones covered in Baker's 6th. There is considerable information on "pop" composers and performers, too: Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and various members of The Beatles, as well as Woody Herman, the late Guy Lombardo are some of the names you will find here. The entries regarding these artists are no less pithy than those of their more classically oriented contemporaries, and the choice of words to describe a musical style or a singer's delivery is perfectly suited to the subject: Sinatra, we are told, developed a method of singing "by convex inhalation from a corner of the mouth, a sui generis 'mal canto' in sotto uoce delivery ... " Paul McCartney (the only one of The Beatles who went to college, by the way) "went through a period of transcendental meditation when he sat at the feet of a hirsute Indian guru, but his British common sense soon overrode this metaphysical infatuation.''
All told, the 6th edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary is not only the model of what such a tome (and it is a tome, too, consisting of 1955 double-columned pages, exclusive of the delightful--and informative-twenty-seven page introduction), should be: Concise, easy-to-read, and most important, accurate.